These are great nuggets of advice -- the observations on job searching as well as big companies/startups are still true 3 years later. Especially if you're mov

These are great nuggets of advice -- the observations on job searching as well as big companies/startups are still true 3 years later. Especially if you're moving to a new area, being in a startup requires you to put in a lot of effort to broaden your professional network beyond that company. If you work with great people and do fairly well, it can work out fine, but in a lot of cases it doesn't. An alternative is consulting for a few different startups -- I did this and it was great for meeting a bunch of new people in different verticals, learning new platforms quickly, and so on. It also helps you build up a larger set of people who you know and who know your skills, rather than people who know you for other facets of your life ('a really great Halo player but no idea if she can code'). As patio11 points out, the best stuff isn't posted online - you'll get the job you want through the people you know, not through scouring job postings.